Stage Direction: It's 1850, and the new novel by that Melville fellow is in the bookshop. You know, the fellow that lived with those South Sea cannibals. Let's open it up and see what's on offer. No, read aloud; I want to hear it too. --------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all conscience, as the sequel will show.
The way I came by it was this.
When our frigate lay in Callao, on the coast of Peru--her last harbour in the Pacific--I found myself without a grego, or sailor's surtout; and as, toward the end of a three years' cruise, no pea-jackets could be had from the purser's steward: and being bound for Cape Horn, some sort of a substitute was indispensable; I employed myself, for several days, in manufacturing an outlandish garment of my own devising, to shelter me from the boisterous weather we were so soon to encounter.
It was nothing more than a white duck frock, or rather shirt: which, laying on deck, I folded double at the bosom, and by then making a continuation of the slit there, opened it lengthwise-- much as you would cut a leaf in the last new novel. The gash being made, a metamorphosis took place, transcending any related by Ovid. For, presto! the shirt was a coat!--a strange-looking coat, to be sure; of a Quakerish amplitude about the skirts; with an infirm, tumble-down collar; and a clumsy fullness about the wristbands; and white, yea, white as a shroud. And my shroud it afterward came very near proving, as he who reads further will find.
But, bless me, my friend, what sort of a summer jacket is this, in which to weather Cape Horn? A very tasty, and beautiful white linen garment it may have seemed; but then, people almost universally sport their linen next to their skin.
Very true; and that thought very early occurred to me; for no idea had I of scudding round Cape Horn in my shirt; for that would have been almost scudding under bare poles, indeed.
So, with many odds and ends of patches--old socks, old trowser- legs, and the like--I bedarnedand bequilted the inside of my jacket, till it became, all over, stiff and padded, as King James'scotton-stuffed and dagger-proof doublet; and no buckram or steel hauberk stood up more stoutly.
So far, very good; but pray, tell me, White-Jacket, how do you propose keeping out the rain and the wet in this quilted grego of yours? You don't call this wad of old patches a Mackintosh, do you?----you don't pretend to say that worsted is water-proof?
No, my dear friend; and that was the deuce of it. Waterproof it was not, no more than a sponge. Indeed, with such recklessness had I bequilted my jacket, that in a rain-storm I became a universal absorber; swabbing bone-dry the very bulwarks I leaned against. Of a damp day, my heartless shipmates even used to stand up against me, so powerful was the capillary attraction between this luckless jacket of mine and all drops of moisture. I dripped like a turkey a’roasting; and long after the rain storms were over, and the sun showed his face, I still stalked a Scotch mist; and when it was fair weather with others, alas! it was foul weather with me.
Me? Ah me! Soaked and heavy, what a burden was that jacket to carry about, especially when I was sent up aloft; dragging myself up step by step, as if I were weighing the anchor. Small time then, to strip, and wring it out in a rain, when no hanging back or delay was permitted. No, no; up you go: fat or lean: Lambert or Edson: never mind how much avoirdupois you might weigh. And thus, in my own proper person, did many showers of rain reascend toward the skies, in accordance with the natural laws.
But here be it known, that I had been terribly disappointed in carrying out my original plan concerning this jacket. It had been my intention to make it thoroughly impervious, by giving it a coating of paint, But bitter fate ever overtakes us unfortunates. So much paint had been stolen by the sailors, in daubing their overhaul trowsers and tarpaulins, that by the time I--an honest man--had completed my quiltings, the paint-pots were banned, and put under strict lock and key.
Said old Brush, the captain of the paint-room-- "Look ye, White-Jacket," said he, "ye can't have any paint."
Such, then, was my jacket: a well-patched, padded, and porous one; and in a dark night, gleaming white as the White Lady of Avenel!
That's "The Jacket," the complete opening chapter to White-Jacket, the novel that Herman Melville published the year before publishing his masterpiece Moby Dick. In this novel, Melville keeps to the nautical themes of his highly popular first two novels, Typee and Omoo, and his less popular third and fourth novels, Mardi and Redburn, but he shifts us from merchant ships to a military vessel, the U.S.S. Neversink, a microcosm as his subtitle indicates: "The World in a Man-of-War."
I love the voice here, White-Jacket telling his tale, describing in practical terms how he ended up a sailor wearing a sponge of a coat, without protection, with its reversal of what such a covering is meant to be and do. I love how the symbolic resides within and transcends the practical and literal. Seamus Heaney, in his poetry, is also a master at creating symbolic resonance within and through a practical framework, a literal and material set of images.
However, while I appreciate and value the symbolic resonances here, the hints and forebodings, what I most appreciate and most value is the voice itself, the humor, the pathos, and the gusto that animates this voice. White-Jacket walks me through his tale of tailorly woe, through the workmanship by which he aimed to solve that problem of protection against the weather, and also through the inadvertent misfortune, the mere and significant bad timing. Gusto: note the relish here. White-Jacket's an Ancient Mariner with a compelling voice and the beginnings of a compelling story. What about that "sequel"? And, how will that untarred jacket be "white enough"? Enough for what? or for whom? and how?
I first read White-Jacket while camping and fishing along the Trinity River in Northern California. My best friend Keith and I would take a few days each summer for three or four years as a sort of retreat or refuge before the new school year would begin. At the time, I was reading my way through all of Melville, striving to work out for myself how he got, as a writer, up and into the narrative voice of Ismael, the heart of Moby Dick. Of course, as I began reading, this narrator, this White-Jacket fellow, pulled me into his story for himself, for itself. Now, almost 30 years after that first encounter, I am opening up this naval novel once again as preparation for teaching that famous whaling novel, yes, but I can already feel myself being pulled in, ready to listen as this particular tale unfolds.
Listen. Read again. Read aloud this time.
There's magic here.
P.S. Some further reflections:
I'm reading (and I've used as illustrations above) the old Signet Classics edition of Melville's novel. The artist of that cover isn't specified, or I'd give full credit indeed. I may have picked up the novel because it was written by The Author of Moby Dick, but that image of the rugged sailor, 70's hair and all, with the ship and sea and sky, all helped me to pick this book to take up to the Trinity to read while lounging about, enjoying the sunshine, fishing, and telling tall-tales.
I recall that weekend as being so so hot. Evenings, we'd forego any ideas about cooking for ourselves, the heat was still that draining, and we'd drive to the town of Big Flat and eat at Big Flat Pizza. We'd start talking about the ice tea with real ice about an hour before we'd hope in the car and go. After we'd cool down, we'd pick up some beer for the campfire session and talk for hours, revisiting past triumphs and disasters, making plans for the future, solving the problems of the world, out-Socratizing Socrates. Fine times, some of the finest I've known.
During the day on the Trinity River that weekend, we'd cram ourselves beneath any shade we could find: under bushes, under giant boulders even; we'd picked a spot without any trees down on the flat beside the river, and we were too exhausted and drained from all that heat to hunt up a better place. The tent was no help in such high temps; I don't think we even slept in it. The best relief was to wait until you were really overcooked, really steaming from the heat, and then plunge into the river, swimming against the current, until the cold waters quenched all fire and chilled you to the bone. Then, you'd pull yourself out on the other bank of the river and stretch out on the rocks, warming yourself until you were overcooked again, and the cycle of plunge-strive-quench-chill-climb out would be repeated over and over again.
In between cycles, I'd read my book and share bits with Keith. I just may have read this first chapter aloud to him; if I did, I'm sure we found plenty to say in return.
